December 9, 2012

Often on a Saturday morning, we are off with the GPS to see
what we can find at local estate sales.
In years past, we would have enthusiastically bought things for our
shops. These days, we voyeuristically
waft our way through other’s homes day dreaming, window shopping, and enjoying
ourselves.

Occasionally we buy something. Yesterday, in a tidy home above the ocean, I
passed on a lovely large Kitchen Aid mixer for a hundred bucks that would have beat
with a stronger pulse than my 1938 Sunbeam Mixmaster. Swedish influences mixed with mid-century
modern struck a good juxtaposition with the big windows overlooking the
ocean. I, the fabric whore, passed on
the acre of lovely white laces to bring home a delightful, tan lidded casserole
from the early fifties.

Other homes were not such kind ones reflecting a different
view of their owners. Again I passed on
a stronger mixer so overwhelmed was I by the quantity of things left behind. In one home, boxes of sweaters had over
crowded one bedroom filling one closet floor to ceiling and catching all the
dust bunnies under the bed, under the dressers, and spilling out into the hall. At another house, there were Christmas
decorations fighting for space with Victoriana in every tiny room spilling over
into the back yard and rental home to the rear in a cacophonous, dusty mess. Such obsessions so overcrowded what is left
of my mind that I couldn’t consider buying a single thing.

I came home determined to get rid of more of my own
belongings. Somehow. My problem is the same as there’s; I love
what I have.

Keeping those on the east coast in my
thoughts.

Himself:Had fun at the sales, napped well,
and was the talking star at the Automotive Museum. Slept in this morning.

Herself:Not only did I let some skinny brown
kid steal a bag of popcorn out from under my nose, I became aware that I can no
longer put faces with belongings. I shan’t
do that job again….double darn it.
Probably had another TIA or two this year, and my growing loss of short term memory just confirms
this.

Gosh I have never been to a yard sale that I can remember, and was shocked by what I found at various estate sales.

After his wife left him, one of my neighbors sold his house and cleaned out the basement as part of his moving day project. He placed hundreds of adding machines at the curb for county pickup. Then he drove around the corner too fast and some of the junk he was hauling away to the dump spilled onto the hood of our station wagon and damaged it.